Long serving veterans of the electronic scene Somatic Responses are back on Acroplane Recordings with Doomsday Conduit - their 4th LP on the Irish imprint. Always looking forward, the Healy brothers have crafted an album with two distinct identities, presented on either side of a limited edition cassette.
On Side A of this run of 100 tapes, the somewhat introspective opener Other Destinations breaks the ice to make way for the heavyweight material that the Welsh duo are known so well for. The aptly named Photon Barrage features frantic acid lines and punishing breaks, followed by the title track where pulsating bass lines dominate the neo-jungle landscape. Synth layers unfurl in the fast paced The Fault Inside Us, leading to a change of velocity in the form of Slewed Diffusion where the marching percussion is pierced by hyperspace drills.
The B side sees the Somatics exploring the acid drenched, electro occupied realm of their collective output. 2Hlec kicks off with morphing mechanical breaks. Imagined Darkness (Elektro Mix) follows with the sounds of machines engaged in mutual destruction. Process Layer is stripped back in comparison, almost hypnotic, eventually decomposing into a chorus of digital lamentations. SLec has one foot in a post-apocalyptic Detroit, with the other located somewhere off-world. Closing the LP out is the dark ambient ode to the void, Tec Cymru.
The mech-scape imagery for this release has been designed by Timothée Mathelin (www.futurorg.com) and features full colour on shell printing on both sides of the LP’s blue cassette.
A1 | Other Destinations |
A2 | Photon Barrage |
A3 | Doomsday Conduit |
A4 | The Fault Inside Us |
A5 | Slewed Diffusion |
B1 | 2Hlec |
B2 | Imagined Darkness (Elektro Mix) |
B3 | Process Layer |
B4 | SLec |
B5 | Tec Cymru |